John Zeger's Page

At the recent open house on the Kelowna 2030 Official Community Plan, city planners showed an unusual degree of insight that I have not seen from them in the more than six years since I have moved to this city. On one of the display boards was an admission that Kelowna’s future population growth will make the challenge of achieving environmental sustainability much more difficult. The board stated that because of the presence of an additional 32,000 people by the year 2020, residents will need t… Continue

In its continuing work on developing the 2030 Official Community Plan, the City of Kelowna planning department has generated a refined land use scenario based on the Hubs and Spokes option which was most favoured by the public but also including other popular elements. While this option has some desirable features, more work still needs to be done to make this latest scenario acceptable.

Anyone who has participated in the OCP 2030 planning process knows that the Hubs and Spokes option calls for… Continue

It was reported that Kelowna’s unemployment rate shot up in May to 11.5% being one of the highest in B.C. and well above both the provincial and national rates of 7.6% and 8.4%, respectively. Mayor Sharon Shepherd attributes this leap in the number of unemployed to a sharp slowdown in building activity and the fact that about one in four jobs locally is related to the construction industry. So much for Economic Development Commission Chairman Robert Fine’s claim that the local economy has been s… Continue

The next phase of the Kelowna OCP 2030 and the associated public survey that is being conducted (www.kelowna2030.ca) deals with evaluating the final four land use scenarios that have been generated by city planners and consultants. The primary difference among these four scenarios is the urban densities that are being proposed for the city’s urban centres, in particular the downtown and surrounding area, where the possible densities range from a small increase from what currently exists to a nea… Continue

In his letter “Reducing Urban Sprawl” Steve Graham makes the logical errors that most people who support continued growth through increasing residential densities (also known as “smart growth”) make, as the premises on which his argument is based are flawed. And if a conclusion rests on false premises, then that conclusion is false.

Mr. Graham’s first premise is that “population growth is a natural and important part of the economy” so therefore it either should continue or is inevitable. Grant… Continue